


The Avengers Collective

by fuck_me_barnes



Category: Captain America (Movies), Hawkeye (Comics), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, But mostly fluff, Deaf Clint Barton, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, Everyone is Bisexual, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends With Benefits, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Multi, the only explicit content is in Chapter 10
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-03-05 12:18:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 9,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3119924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuck_me_barnes/pseuds/fuck_me_barnes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a collection of miscellaneous ficlets and filled prompts that didn't have any place in my other works. </p><p>None of these are in any particular order. Some allude to comics canon, others to MCU canon, and most of them do both.</p><p>  <b>Currently, the only explicit content is in Chapter 10.</b> There are implied sexual relationships in several.</p><p>Tags may change, pairings may change or be added, my tumblr inbox is open for headcanons and prompts 24-7/365. Come visit me sometime at fuck-me-barnes.tumblr.com :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint/Natasha, prompt was "Don't trust me".

"Don’t you move."   
  
"I guarantee you I can get a shot off on you before you can loose an arrow on me."  
  
They’re standing there in the shell of a partially burned-out building, stone-faced, weapons pointed at one another. An impasse.  
  
"This is stupid. Don’t waste your time on me, there’s about fifty men out there waiting for either one of us to come out." Nat nods her head sharply towards the door. This mission had taken a bad left turn, her intel was all wrong thanks to Volkov’s ineptitude, and now there’s this asshole.  
  
"You get your intel from Volkov?" the man asks, as if he’s read her thoughts.  
  
She just stares at him.  
  
He chuckles. “Yeah, thought so. Me too. Looks like we’re both fucked, huh.”  
  
"You could say that." She sighs, and makes a decision. "Okay, listen. I don’t know and I don’t care whose side you’re on. I know we both want to get out of Budapest alive. I’m going to count to three, and then we’re gonna lower our weapons, okay?"  
  
The man considers it for a second. “Yeah, okay,” he agrees.  
  
"One. Two. Three." Both sets of arms and both sets of weapons lower slowly, warily to the ground. Outside, there are voices. Angry Hungarian is being shouted somewhere in the distance.   
  
The blonde grimaces. “We don’t have much time. Listen: there’s an exit point on the southwest side of the building that’ll give us some cover. If we can get out of here, I can get us to an extraction point.”   
  
Natasha raises an eyebrow. “We? What’s this ‘we’? I work alone.”   
  
"Yeah? You wanna  _die_  alone, too? ‘Cause that’s what’s gonna happen if we both run out of here separately. Go ahead. Don’t trust me. Your funeral.” He smirks. “No skin off my back if you wanna bite it today. I’ll just tell my buddies that I took out the Black Widow in Budapest. Probably get a pay raise. And a better apartment.” He looks thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe it’ll have a DVR. I miss so much TV doing this stuff.”   
  
Gritting her teeth, Natasha hisses, “Who do you work for?”  
  
"Baby, wouldn’t you like to know. But now’s not the time for interrogation, _chernoya vdova_. C’mon, let’s roll.” He darts off towards the rear of the building, and Natasha makes an exasperated noise as she follows after him.   
  
"Volkov sold me out. I’ll kill him," she mutters to herself.   
  
"Bet I’ll beat you to him," the blonde says cheerily.  
  
” _This is not a contest_ ,” Natasha growls.   
  
He stops and pauses before the exit door. “Okay, friendly wager. I take out more of them than you do, I get to murder Volkov. If you take out more than me, you get to murder Volkov AND come work for me. With me. I mean. Work  _with_  me.”  
  
"Are you  _deaf_? I said I work alone.”  
  
The man looks genuinely offended. “Whoa, Little Miss Ableism, as a matter of fact…” but he doesn’t finish the rest of the sentence, because an explosion rocks the far side of the building. “Okay that’s our cue.” He pushes the door open.   
  
Rushing out the back, she starts firing, and the man actually manages some extremely impressive gymnastics while also taking some of their opponents out with his bow and arrow. Natasha has to grudgingly give him some credit, he’s _good_.  
  
Another explosion rocks the building behind them. “Think they’ve got rocket launchers,” he pants as they duck behind a low, crumbling brick wall. “Shit. Clint Barton.”  
  
"What?" she asks, reloading her magazine.   
  
"My name. Clint. Barton. Hawkeye. That’s what they call me. My friends do." He peeks up over the top of the wall. "Looks clear. Mostly. Oooh, that guy’s not gonna be walking again for a while. Ouch."  
  
She raises an eyebrow again and looks at him, deadpan. “Your friends call you Hawkeye?”  
  
"No, they call me Clint." He grins at her like he’s having the time of his life, and not surrounded on all sides by angry Hungarian mobsters. Okay, she likes this guy. He’s growing on her.  
  
"Natasha Romanov." She gives him a small smile in return  
  
"All right. Natasha. Cool. Extraction’s only two klicks away. Let’s move."   
  
They take turns, darting between cover and fighting their way out of the compound. By the time they get to the vehicle waiting for them, they’ve started cheering one another on every time another target gets taken down.  
  
They’re sitting in the back of the truck when Clint looks at her and says, “26.”   
  
Natasha tilts her head. “Pardon?”  
  
"You took out 26 guys. You beat me. Only by two. And only ‘cause my shoelace came untied. So…guess I’ll have to give you Volkov." He sighs. "And now you have to come work with me."   
  
"I never agreed to…"  
  
Clint cuts her off. “Sorry, sugar, can’t hear you. Tried to tell you, I’m a little deaf.” He taps his ears, looking at her with mock regret. “But I’m pretty sure you agreed to it. I  _definitely_  heard that.”  
  
Natasha laughs, then, against her own better judgment. After all, what did she have to lose? Volkov was clearly a double-dealer and now he was a dead man, that was for certain. Besides, she  _had_  been looking to make a change, after all…   
  
"All right. Fine.  _Hawkeye_. I’m willing to listen to your sales pitch.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint/Pepper, prompt was "I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere."

It’s been a rough week for Clint, and that’s saying a lot, given that his “normal” week involves the occasional fall off of rooftops, being chased down by a bunch of tracksuit-wearing thugs, and accidentally erasing the newest episodes of Dog Cops off of his DVR.

And now. Now he can’t fucking  _hear_. And Kate is gone. And his  _dog_  is gone.  
  
He figures, by the way the red light on the comm is flashing, that some of the Avengers are trying to get ahold of him, but ironically, this particular piece of Stark tech is only an earbud. Frustrated, he throws it in the trash. He doesn’t want to get on it, tell him he can’t hear them. Doesn’t want to tell anyone, doesn’t want to talk about it.   
  
He stares at it, blinking in the trash can. Probably an emergency. Avengers business. Kree invasion. Dr. Doom on some bullshit again. Who knows what. Clint closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose, hard, for a moment. He can’t just ignore it. He can’t.

Angrily, he stalks his way around his little apartment, grabbing his bow, collecting some arrows, muttering to himself. At least, to him it feels like muttering. What he’s actually doing is yelling.  
  
"Futzing BROS and futzing KATE futzing who even knows WHERE and futzing COMM futzing BLINKING can’t futzing HEAR ANYTHING futzing OUT OF COFFEE futzing BARNEY in a futzing WHEELCHAIR and futzing LUCKY futzing GONE everybody futzing GONE fine whatever don’t care I CAN DO IT MYSELF" and his rant is suddenly interrupted by the whizzing of an arrow past his ear.   
  
He turns, startled, to see Pepper Potts in the doorway of his apartment, holding the bow he’d hung over his couch, glaring at him with her eyes cold blue steel.  
  
Clint stands there, jaw hanging open. Pepper Potts. With his bow. Where the futz did she learn how to _shoot_  -   
  
She tosses it onto the couch and walks straight towards him, a determined look on her face. Bewildered, Clint tries to back up a few steps, but finds himself up against the rough brick wall. Pepper stops a full foot away from him, never dropping eye contact, and signs, “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”   
  
After a few beats, she grabs him and pulls him into a hug. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky/Nat, prompt was "Shit, are you bleeding?"

"The mission did not go as planned", Bucky growls into his comm unit. "We need an extraction." A few feet away, Nat fires off a couple of rounds, ducks back in to cover at the returning fire.  
  
There’s no answer on the comm. “Hello? Winter Soldier and Black Widow requesting extraction, come in.” The only response is a flat hiss of static. Swearing, he moves towards the door. Nat crouches low to the ground, and without looking back at Bucky, nods her head towards a flight of stairs on the opposite side of the room.   
  
"We need to get to the roof", she says in Russian. Her voice is tight. "Now."   
  
Bucky nods once. “Room clear?”  
  
"Room’s clear. Rooftop exit at the top of those stairs." Nat confirms. "Move. Get the door open. I’ll get your six." She gestures for him to take point in front of her, and he doesn’t hesitate.   
  
The exit’s eight flights up, and he tries the comm again on each floor. Nothing. Nat’s behind him the whole way, covering his back, and when he reaches the top he has to break down the door. It’s freezing out, sometime during the night it’d started to snow.  
  
The good: They have the best vantage point in the city. The bad: There’s no way off this roof unless it’s from above. He presses the button on the comm unit hard, frustrated. “Hill. Come in. Come in, goddamn it.”  
  
Nat’s behind him, breathing hard. He turns to tell her he can’t get ahold of anyone at SHIELD, and notices how pale she looks. She smiles at him, faintly, and then falls to her knees, hard. There’s a damp patch on the right side of her suit.   
  
"Natalia? Shit, are you bleeding?!" Bucky rushes towards her to catch her.   
  
“‘M fine, James,” she murmurs with a weak smile. Her eyes flutter closed, and she passes out.   
  
"Natalia. Nat! Stay with me, stay with me…" he panics, lowering himself to the ground to cradle her in his arms. The snow’s falling harder now, collecting in her hair and on her eyelashes. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. C’mon, Nat, wake up." He presses the button on the comm again frantically. "COME IN. NAT IS DOWN, WE NEED AN EXTRACTION." Silence.

Bucky shifts and pulls one of his sidearms, still holding Natasha in his lap. At least he’ll be armed if any stragglers try to come up to the roof. He checks her pulse: weak, thready, but still present, her breathing shallow. A slow trickle of blood leaks from the wound in her right side, pooling on the ground below them, bright red against the newly fallen snow.  
  
He brushes the snow from her face, leans down to kiss her. “I’m here, I’m here, don’t leave me, Natalia, c’mon…”  
  
Just then the comm on Natasha crackles to live. “Black Widow, come in. Come in, Widow. Status report.” Bucky grabs at it, tearing it off her uniform.   
  
"This is Winter Soldier. My comm was disabled. Nat…Black Widow is down. Requesting extraction immediately."  
  
Hill’s voice is calm, efficient. “Copy. What’s your twenty, Barnes?”  
  
Bucky gives her the pertinent information, and she lets them know there’s a team en route that should arrive in twenty minutes. “Make it ten. She’s losing a lot of blood”, he says tightly.   
  
"10-4, I’ll put the team on double time." Hill says, and the comm goes silent again.  
  
Pulling Natasha closer to him gently, mindful of her wound, Bucky kisses her forehead. “They’re on their way, Nat. Hang in there a few more minutes. Please. For me. Natalia…” He brushes more snow from her face, trying to keep her warm, dividing his attention between making sure she’s still breathing and scanning the sky for the rescue team.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint/Kate, prompt was "I'm not cut out for this."

Clint’s hanging by one foot,upside down in the warehouse when she finds him.   
  
"Oh, lovely." Kate rolls her eyes, aims her arrow, and severs the rope in one clean shot. Clint falls a couple of feet to the ground with a soft  _whump_.  
  
"Ow", he groans, sitting up and rubbing his side where he’d landed.   
  
"What’d you walk into this time?" Kate asks, walking over with a sardonic smile playing across her lips. "C’mon." She reaches her hand out to help him up.  
  
He takes it, letting her pull him back onto his feet. “Snare on the ground. Oldest trick in the book. Literally. Walked right into it.” He brushes off his clothes, and she notices he looks pretty beat up.  
  
Clint’s quiet the whole way home, and it’s not till they’re back at the apartment and she’s patching him up that he blurts out, “I’m not cut out for this.”  
  
Kate sits up, looking at him with one eyebrow raised. “Beg pardon?”

"Aww, Katie, c’mon. I don’t have superpowers. I don’t have a fancy metal suit or adamantium bones or even a little bit of accelerated healing. I’m no hero. I can’t even get myself out of a stupid bit of rope on my own."  
  
She sits all the way back in her chair, narrowing her eyes. “Really? Clint Barton, you need to stop it with the self-pity stuff. It’s the worst thing about you, you know that? You know what those people have that you don’t? It’s not superpowers,  _Hawkeye_. They know. When to ask. For  _help_.”  
  
Angrily, she slaps a bandage on his side, a little too hard. “You had your phone on you. You could have called someone. You could have called me, you could have called any one of your Avenger buddies, but  _no_. How long were you gonna hang there, feeling sorry for yourself, trying to do it alone?”

Clint says nothing, sitting mutely, looking down at the table. “Katie, I…”  
  
She grabs his face, turns his head and forces him to look at her. “Katie,  _nothing_. People  _care_  about you, Clint. No one expects you to do it all alone. Doesn’t make you weak to call in backup when you get overwhelmed. You stubborn ass.”  
  
Kate lets him go, shaking her head with irritation. “Lucky helped  _me_  find you. I couldn’t have done that without him. Maybe you should thank him.” Hearing his name, Lucky wags his tail, looking at her expectantly.  
  
"Thanks," Clint mutters. "C’mere, boy."  
  
"Next time don’t leave it up to your dog. Or me. Though I’m practically an Avenger." Kate cracks a smile. "Okay?"  
  
"Okay", says Clint, one side of his mouth turning up. "All right, Katie. I’ll try to remember that,"


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint/Kate, prompt was "Look at me - just breathe, okay?"

Usually, it’s Kate who’s always saving Clint from himself. So it’s more than a little unusual when Kate shows up on his doorstep, barely restrained panic in her eyes. 

"Katie?" Clint asks, confused.   
  
She opens her mouth, jaw working as if to speak, but no sound comes out. Clint pulls her in, shutting the apartment door behind her. “Katie. Hey. Katie-Kate. Talk to me.”

Kate shakes her head mutely, and Clint puts his hands on her shoulders, bending slightly to catch her eyes. “Hey. Hey. Look at me - just breathe, okay? What’s wrong?”

Taking a deep breath, she finally manages to blurt out, “They - they’ve got Lucky.”  
  
Clint’s mouth presses into a line for a split second, before he turns to grab his gear. “Who does. Where.” It’s not even a question, more of a demand He tosses her one of his bows and a quiver full of arrows as he speaks. “Is he hurt?”  
  
"I don’t - I don’t know. I was walking him, and I stopped for just a second to get an ice cream, and I tied his leash to a tree, and there were these guys in tracksuits, and there was a van, and they said - something about docks, and they called me bro. Said, ‘we got your friend’s dog, bro.’ and then they drove off." Kate wipes a tear away angrily. "I don’t even look like a guy."  
  
Clint groans. “Not those futzing guys again. C’mon, Katie-Kate.” 

They head down to a little warehouse near the docks - “Good to know they haven’t diversified their properties much”, says Clint sarcastically - and break in through a second-story window.   
  
Creeping around a railing, they look down, and sure enough, there’s half a dozen tracksuits sitting around a muzzled Lucky. All of them are holding baseball bats or tire irons. Lucky doesn’t look hurt, not from here, but they have him in a choke chain and that just pisses both of them right off. “ _Assholes_ ”, hisses Kate.  
  
Smirking, Clint whispers to her, “Only six? We got this. Hey, can you still do that Domitian thing?”   
  
Kate rolls her eyes. “Please.  _You_  can’t even do that. Obviously _I_  can.”  
  
"Yeah yeah. Don’t hurt my dog." Clint says over his shoulder at her as he leaps over the railing and fires off a shot, taking out one of the tracksuits at the knee.

"Bro! We kill you, bro! This  _our_  dog, bro!” one of the other tracksuits shouts, and Clint lands with a hard whump on the concrete, splitting his pants in the fall. “GET. AWAY. FROM. MY. DOG.” He takes a step, lining up a shot, and then trips over his own ripped pants, landing on his ass.  
  
"Aww, pants, no," he groans, and then looks up at the five remaining advancing bros. He lines up a shot, exhales, and lets a single arrow fly, getting one of them in the knee, and just as he does, from above the remaining four bros are taken out by four separate arrows.  
  
"IN CASE YOU’RE WONDERING, I CAN STILL TOTALLY DO IT", Kate calls from above.

Lucky trots over, wagging his tail. Clint removes the muzzle and the choke chain. “Who wants some pizza?” Lucky wags his tail harder and barks his assent. “It’s unanimous. Katie, we’re stopping for pizza on the way home.”   
  
"Not without pants, you’re not." Kate says, hanging over the railing and rolling her eyes. But she’s smiling as she says it, and Lucky’s wagging his tail so hard it looks like it might fly off. "Okay. Maybe delivery, then."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky/Nat, prompt was "Don't you listen to them, don't you EVER listen to them".

It’s been a year since Natasha discovered that Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, war hero and best friend of Captain America, was the brainwashed assassin known as the Winter Soldier. It’s been about six months since Steve Rogers found him outside [a crepe shop](http://fuck-me-barnes.tumblr.com/post/95880970562/dont-fucking-touch-me-and-stucky-please) in Washington, D.C., hungry, confused, and alone. He had brought Bucky (as Steve insisted he be called) back to his apartment, and, not knowing what else to do, called Natasha in the following day.  
  
Of course, it didn’t take more than two weeks for the press to discover exactly what was going on. Captain America was a pretty public figure, and they weren’t able to keep James hidden for very long. Steve had requested, repeatedly and politely, to please give them their privacy during this delicate time, to allow Bucky to recover in peace.   
  
They’d mostly managed. The morning after Natasha shows James how to use the internet, she wanders downstairs and finds that he’s still in his room.  
  
"James?" she asks, knocking on the door. She tries the handle and finds out that it’s locked. He sometimes closes the door - it’s important to all of them that he has the choice to have privacy or not - but he never locks it. There’s no answer on the other side of the wall. "James, would you let me in, please?"   
  
After a long pause, she hears him shuffle over and the door opens a crack. “Everything okay?” When she looks at him, she knows it is not. His eyes are red and puffy, his nose looks raw.   
  
"Nat. You didn’t tell me…what they were saying about me. The news. They said…they said that I…should be put on trial for murder. That I deserve to be executed. Traitor to my country. Disgrace to Captain America." His breath hitches. "They’re right."  
  
Natasha, enraged, pulls herself up to her full height and grabs his shoulders, resists the powerful urge to shake him. “James. Don’t listen to them. Don’t you EVER listen to them. You are this country’s longest held prisoner of war.  _You were not responsible for what they did to you._ ”

She reaches one hand under his chin, holds his face gently. “Look at me. You are a _victim_ , James, not a villain. You were not given a choice, or even a consciousness with which to make decisions. It wasn’t you.  _It was not you_. Do you understand?”  
  
He shakes his head, uncomprehending, and tries to protest. “But I…”  
  
"No. Don’t do that to yourself. I can tell you from experience, it’s not going to get you in any kind of headspace that’s good."   
  
She wraps her arms around his waist and pulls him close to her in a hug. “James, listen to me. They did the  _same thing_  to me. I know what it’s like. To have someone take  _you_  out, and put someone else in. Don’t you listen to them. They don’t know what you’ve been through. You’re a good man, James Buchanan Barnes. And we intend to show everyone that.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> America/Kate, prompt was "You're not useless".

Kate’s chest burns. She can’t keep up. Everyone else has superpowers and she’s just…a regular girl.  _Fighting with a stick and a string from the Paleolithic era_. That’s what Clint had said, anyways. The other Hawkeye. About himself.  
  
She doesn’t call out for them to wait up, feeling ashamed and stubborn all at once. “C’mon, you can do this…” she mutters to herself breathlessly. As she rounds the corner she sees two things: 

  1. the door ahead is closed.
  2. all of the Young Avengers are gone.



"No. No no no no no no. FUCK!" she screeches, skidding into the door. She tries to open it, even though she knows it’s futile: it only opens from the other side and there’s no handle. She can hear them advancing on her from behind, and turns to face her pursuers. She pulls an arrow, takes her aim. Deep breath, and…  
  
 **POW**. Something -  _someone_  - grabs her from behind before she could take the shot, and she’s being pulled…oh. Into another dimension, apparently. “Almost lost you there, Princess.” America looks mildly annoyed. “Had to come back and get you.”

Kate withers under her gaze. Earning America’s disapproval is the absolute last thing she’d wanted to accomplish tonight. “Ugh. I’m sorry. All I ever do is slow you guys down.” She slings her bow over her shoulder angrily. No superpowers. Stupid human limitations. “I’m so goddamned useless.”  
  
One eyebrow raises. “Kate. You’re not useless.”   
  
"Yes I am. I can’t do what you guys do. I can’t…fly, or warp reality, or punch holes into other dimensions…all I’ve got is my bow and arrow."

"If you were useless, I wouldn’t have bothered to come back and get you." There’s a sparkle of humour in her brown eyes as she speaks, but it makes Kate somehow feel worse.   
  
She shrugs, deflecting the compliment. “You shouldn’t have bothered.”  
  
America reaches out and grabs her by the collar of her uniform, pulls Kate close until their faces are only inches apart. “I don’t ever want to hear you say something like that again, Princess. I wouldn’t ever leave you behind.”  
  
Kate flounders. America’s awfully gorgeous even on the worst of days, but she’s even more beautiful up close. It’s kind of distracting. “You wanna know why I came back for you?” she asks, pulling her in even closer. “Here’s why.”  
  
Before Kate can register what’s happening, America leans in and kisses her. She tastes like vanilla and honey and fire. Kate’s eyes widen at the shock of it, and then flutter closed as she returns the kiss.  
  
When she finally pulls away, panting, America is calm, composed, and smirking. “That’s why. Now let’s get going. We’ve got worlds to save.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky/Nat, prompt was "Look at me - just breathe, okay?"

"Again, Natalia." He growls the command, plants his feet firmly on the ground, and beckons her towards him; permission to move.  
  
Her facial expression doesn’t change, a perfect blank of calm. She runs at him and launches herself onto him, wrapping her thighs around his neck, pulling a garrote around his throat in one quick, efficient manever. Move completed, he taps her flank firmly twice, the signal to disengage.   
  
"Better that time. For once." The compliment doesn’t escape her notice, and she tries not to beam at it, keeps her face schooled into that perfectly neutral mask she’s been working on.  
  
"Next. Lilya. Come forth." He beckons the next girl in the line, and Natalia steps back. She watches, but in honesty her attention is more focused on the trainer than the student that she’s supposed to be observing. He’s fascinating, his metal arm catching the light as he moves, always looking a little disheveled. If she had to guess, she’d put him at maybe a few years older than her, but not much. Young, like her. She has no idea what his name is. The others call him The American, though he speaks flawless Russian.

Hours later, the session ends, and the girls file out of the Red Room, one by one. She gets almost all the way back to the dormitory when she realizes that she’d left her training gloves behind. Quickly, she rushes back down the steps and into the darkened hall - and nearly trips over something on the floor.  _A man_ , she registers. Instinctively, she pulls one of her knives and rounds, as she falls, on the man who had been lying in wait for her.

The man doesn’t move. The man is curled in a fetal position on the floor, shaking. The man is panting, taking quick shallow breaths.  _It’s a trick_ , and she moves on him, ready to strike. As she rolls on top of him, pushing him onto his back, the light from the windows hits his face -  _it’s the American_.  
  
"N-n-n-n-" he stutters, his eyes rolling wildly between her and the training hall, and her expression goes from perfectly controlled to concerned. _He’s having some kind of fit._ She leans over him.

"Look at me. Look at me! Just breathe, okay?" she whispers to him kindly, taking his head gently in her hands. She’d say his name, but, she realizes now, she doesn’t even know his name. "Hey. Hey. Hey. You’re okay…" Natalia waits patiently until his eyes meet hers, her thumbs rubbing his temples in small, gentle circles.

She holds him there until his breathing slows, and he closes his eyes. “Natalia”, he croaks out. “Natalia.”  
  
"Yes, it’s me", she whispers to him, "I’m here." She pauses, and then asks, softly, "What’s your name. They never told us-"

"Barnes, James. Sergeant. 32557…"  
  
"James?" she repeats, the name unfamiliar in her mouth. She can hear footsteps coming down the stairs, the long corridor.  
  
"Natalia-" his eyes flutter open, panicked again. "Natalia,  _run_.”  
  
"I won’t leave you-" she starts, but he pushes her off of him violently, that metal arm whirring, and she lands a few feet away on the ground.  
  
” _Run_ ”, he hisses, and then she hears the doors to the hall clicking open.   
  
She runs, but not far, hiding behind a stack of mats on the other side of the room, as three men come in and make a beeline for the American.  _Barnes. James. Sergeant. 32557_.

"No," he screams as they approach on him. "No!"   
  
The three men are talking as they move forward to put him in some kind of restraint, and she only gets fragmented sentences: “Programming breaking down. Double the measures. Take him back to the chair” as they drag him off, sobbing like a wounded child, begging  _please_  and  _no_  and  _don’t_ and, strangely,  _Steve_ , which earns him a sharp backhand from one of the men.  
  
She doesn’t see him again in the Red Room for six weeks. When he finally returns, he looks at her with empty blue eyes, no hint of recognition, no spark of life. His voice is flat, robotic. “Natalia. Come forth.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha/Maria, prompt was "Don't fucking touch me".

The door to the breakroom slams, and Natasha storms in. She throws herself into one of the armchairs, placing her head in her hands. A shuddering sigh escapes her, and she rubs at her eyes with the heels of her palms.  
  
"Hey, is everything okay?" Maria asks, stepping up behind her and placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.  
  
Natasha stiffens and then flinches away, swatting at her hand. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

Startled, Maria backs up a step. “Jesus.  _Sorry_. I just wanted to-“  
  
"I  _don’t_  like being touched when I’m upset, and even under the  _best_  of circumstances, I  _really_  don’t like being approached from behind, where I can’t see someone else’s hands”, Natasha growls through gritted teeth.

"I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I just…how can I help?" Maria asks softly. When Nat looks up, she can see that there’s genuine concern and warmth in her friend’s brown eyes, and she softens a little. 

"It’s all right. You wouldn’t have any way of knowing. I’m sorry I snapped at you. I have…issues…with being touched. I like knowing where peoples’ hands are at all times." She sits back in the chair slightly, making an attempt to relax. "Part of it’s my training, another part of it is personal preference. I don’t really feel safe if I can’t see what someone’s doing. I didn’t know you were in here, or I wouldn’t have come in."

Maria smiles a little. “Not like I was doing anything private, just grabbing a bottled water out of the fridge.” Natasha doesn’t say anything, just bites her lip, angling her gaze away from Maria. “Hey. You know…I’m not going to judge you for being upset about anything, right? You don’t have to be embarrassed.”  
  
She’s quiet for a little longer, and Maria crouches down in front of the chair. “If you want to talk about it…I’m here. Or even if you don’t. I’m at least willing to provide a distraction.” She grins and winks at Natasha, who finally cracks a sad half-smile.   
  
"Thanks, Maria. Maybe…maybe later."   
  
Maria reaches out for her, slowly, telegraphing her movements so that Natasha can tell her to stop if she needs to. She allows Maria to take her hand in hers. “You need to know you’re not alone.”  
  
Natasha’s smile drops, and she presses her lips into a thin line for a second, dropping her eyes to the floor. “I am. That’s the problem.”  
  
"You don’t have to be," Maria says softly, as she gently strokes her thumb against Natasha’s palm.

Her green eyes widen, and she looks back at Maria, as a sudden understanding hits her. “Oh.  _Oh_.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky/Nat, prompt was "Do you like him?" 
> 
> this one is kind of explicit, and it was the first porny thing I ever wrote.

It’s not till after their third mission that she decides it’s time to talk to him about this.

"So. Do you like him?" she whispers, nodding her head towards Steve, who’s on the far side of the room, peeling off his gloves.

Bucky raises an eyebrow, following her gaze. “You know that I do. What’s this about?”  
  
"I think it’s time. You in?" She smiles, slow and sweet.

They sidle up next to him, one on either side.   
  
"Hey, sugar, are you rationed?" Bucky purrs, and Steve’s smile is all the answer he needs. He leans down for a kiss at the same time that Natasha runs her fingers through his hair, nibbling at his ear.

"Wait -" Steve starts, when Bucky lets him up for air. 

Natasha reaches up, caresses his cheek. “Do you like him?” she asks.  
  
"You know I do. But -" She cuts him off again, reaching up to pull him down for a kiss now, as Bucky starts peeling him out of his uniform.

"We want you. Both of us. And I figured with the way you two have been looking at each other the past six months, if I didn’t bring it to your attention, you’d just keep stealing heated looks at one another over the breakfast table forever." She takes his hand, puts it on the zipper of her own uniform. "Captain Rogers. If you’d do me the honour…?"

Steve grins and peels the zipper down on her catsuit as Bucky tilts his head up to steal another deep kiss, and Natasha laughs as he gets distracted. “Not fair,” Steve pants, looking at Bucky, who’s still fully dressed, and then reaches over to loosen the straps on Bucky’s jacket.   
  
In short order, they’re all undressed, Bucky and Nat’s hands tangling and touching as they stroke Steve’s cock. He moans into Bucky’s collarbone, his hand on Natasha’s breast.

"Bed," Bucky decides.

"Bed," Natasha agrees, and they each take him by the hand and head to their giant king-sized bed.

"Do you like him?" Natasha hums into Bucky’s ear, stroking him as Steve fucks into him. Bucky’s only response is a long, low groan.

"Take that as a yes," she smirks, licking her lips obscenely and picking up the pace as Bucky arches up into her hand, watching her and writhing underneath Steve. "Mmm, he’s so close. Don’t you want to come, darling? C’mon, baby, come for us."

Steve leans over and kisses Natasha, deeply and desperately, and that’s what pushes Bucky over the edge. He comes with a gasp and a shudder, and Steve fucks him through it, perilously close to his own release. “Tasha. ‘M gonna…” he breathes, and his hips buck helplessly. Seconds later, he comes, moaning into Nat’s mouth.   
  


They’re lying side by side, panting, and Natasha chuckles as she moves to take her place in between them. “See, gentlemen, that wasn’t so difficult. However…” she kisses Bucky and then Steve in turn, “now it’s my turn.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepper/Nat, prompt was "Please, I just...really need some space right now."

It’s the third time she’s cancelled on Pepper in the past two weeks, and that’s enough to make her suspicious. 

Every Tuesday, they have a standing lunch date, which for them was a salad and mimosas at the day spa while they got different spa treatments. Sometimes it was mani-pedis, sometimes facials, sometimes massages, once a seaweed body wrap with a sugar scrub after. Every other Saturday, they had a standing appointment in Natasha’s suite for a  _very different_  type of girl time. The kind of girl time that required Natasha to hand over all control to Pepper, and allow herself to submit completely to her. It was an arrangement they’d had for the past year now, and - up until the past two weeks - was something of a given. 

Pepper finds herself knocking on the door of Natasha’s quarters that Saturday at the appointed time anyways. After a long moment where she starts to wonder if maybe Nat’s not there at all, the door opens, slowly. Natasha appears, cool and collected, as if there wasn’t anything wrong.

"Pepper. I thought you had gotten my text?" she asks.

"I did, I just…can I come in? I’d like to talk to you." Indicating that that was more of a statement than a request, she brushes past her and enters the suite, her Louboutins clicking on the hardwood floor. Natasha had a thing for those shoes, and it she had made a deliberate decision to wear them here tonight.

Pepper sits down on the couch in the living room, crossing her legs and folding her hands in her lap. “Come sit,” she commands, and gestures to the space next to her.   
  
Ignoring it, Natasha perches on a nearby armchair instead, which makes Pepper frown slightly. “Nat. Obviously something is going on with you. I’d like if we could talk about it.”

The room is quiet for a long, expectant moment, and finally, Natasha looks away. “Please, I just…really need space right now.”

Pepper tilts her head and nods slowly. “Okay. I’m willing to give you as much space as you need, because I respect your boundaries. I hope that you’d feel comfortable enough with me to tell me if there’s something bothering you, though.”

Natasha sighs uncomfortably, her standoffish demeanor crumbling, as it often did when they were alone together. “You’re right. I do owe you an explanation.” She stands, going over to look out the window, her back to Pepper.

"This…arrangement of ours is…getting complicated. At first, it was just friendship, and just….business. But…" She turns to face Pepper, a worried crease in her brow, her words hesitant. "I might have developed…some inconvenient…feelings. And I thought the best remedy for that was…to pull away."

Pepper smiles kindly. “I don’t see how becoming attached to a partner’s a problem.”

Nat bites her lip. “Well. You’re with Tony. And like I said. What we do is…just business.”  
  
"And you’ve been feeling that you want it to be more than that? More than just  _girl time_?” Pepper asks gently. “Romantic, even?” 

She stares at her for a long moment, and then nods slowly, as if embarrassed. Natasha didn’t like feeling vulnerable. Submitting to Pepper was, for her, a way to give up the tight control she had over herself and give it to someone else, someone she trusted, someone who could let her get what she needed while feeling safe. Nat did not like to hold conversations about “feelings” and “partners” and “romance.” And definitely not the L-word.

"It takes me awhile to…warm up to someone. To feel connected. Like I want more than just," she gestures vaguely towards Pepper, "physical stuff. So. I got a little scared, when I realized."

"Natasha. It’s okay. It’s really okay. I’d be happy to take our relationship to whatever level you’re happy and comfortable with. It’s going to have to involve some talking, yes, but I think we’re going to be just fine. I promise." She can see how Nat visibly relaxes at this, some of the tension in her shoulders loosening.

She crosses the room to stand next to Natasha, and puts her hands on her shoulders gently. “I know that these kinds of discussions are difficult for you, but I’m very glad we’re having it. I’ll tell you what - how about I order up a pizza, some caramel gelato, and a couple of pairs of pajamas, and we can have dessert and talk about what we want from one another, okay?”

Nat nods, smiling slightly. “Okay. That sounds reasonable.”

"Good. I’m going to kiss you on the cheek now," Pepper tells her, "and then we can sit down and talk as much or as little as you’d like to."

This time Natasha’s smile is relieved. “Sounds perfect.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky/Nat, prompt was "Did I hurt you?"
> 
> Do you ever just hate the storyline of something so much you decide to write something to amend it? Yeah.
> 
> Fixed it for you, Brubaker.

She doesn’t remember anything, and that’s the worst part. She used to call him James, and before that, in the Red Room, she called him Vanya. Now she calls him Winter Soldier. His codename. Like they’d never met.   
  
He’d told them, in a moment of stupid, foolish self-pity, that Natasha would be better off without him. What he  _really_  meant was he felt that he didn’t deserve her. That the entire time they were together, it felt like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop - that as soon as he was happy and content, it would be snatched away from him just as everything else in his life had been.   
  
It had almost worked. He’d almost convinced himself that the best way to protect the love of his life was to stay far away from her, and to allow her to live her life without him.   
  
And then, the train heist mission happened. They’d sent him to stop the robbery, and what they didn’t tell him was that Natasha was the one who they’d sent to rob it. She’d treated him like any other colleague - cool, professional, detached - and he’d made sure she got out of there alive.   
  
Ever since then, he couldn’t stop thinking about her, and the mistake he’d made. If there was one thing Natasha valued, above all else, it was her agency. And he’d taken that away from her, not allowing her the choice of whether or not she’d want her memories restored. 

She’d have allowed him the dignity of making that decision. He had denied her the same respect, out of fear that she might  _choose_  to forget. Forget  _them_. It was stupid of him, and selfish, and he has to tell her.

Bucky blurts all of this out to her while she listens patiently. “And…I was wrong, Natalia. I was wrong, and I want to make it right.”

She looks at him, her gaze unreadable. He knows she’s assessing him, treating him as just another interrogation subject, and he has to look away.  
  
"You say we fought. The first time I’d lost my memory. Did I hurt you?" she asks, her tone neutral. Just looking for facts.

"Yeah," he agrees with a rueful chuckle, keeping his eyes on the floor.

"Good." Natasha sounds satisfied. "You deserved it."

Bucky lifts his head in surprise. 

"Did you like it very much," she says in a low voice, "when you were told that you did things you couldn’t remember? Would you rather have  _not known_  what you did, Winter Soldier, when you were the Winter Soldier? Is that why?”

It takes him awhile to find the words to answer. Finally, he sighs. “I…there’s a lot of things I wanted to forget. Things I did, things I wouldn’t have wanted to ever remember. But I wouldn’t have wanted to go forward in the dark, to have whole chunks of my life missing.”  
  
"But I would have…I would have wanted to remember  _you_. You were the one good thing in all of it. You would’ve…done the same for me, I realize that now. And I…I fucked up here, Nat, I fucked up so bad. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Natalia. I want you to have your choices.” He has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from crying with the way she’s looking at him as if he is a stranger, without a hint of warmth. 

She’s silent again for a long, contemplative moment. Then she stands, decisively, and crosses the room to him, puts her hand on his shoulder. 

"I want to know. I want to know everything. Of  _course_  I want to remember what you say we had.”  Natasha looks him squarely in the eye. “And when I remember, I’m going to weigh it against this, and make my decision then, on where you’ll stand in my life.  _My choice_. That’s my choice, James.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint/Bucky/Nat, prompt was "coping techniques post-mind-control".

Even though the amount of time that Clint was controlled by Loki was a blink of an eye in comparison to the time the Winter Soldier was a possession in the hands of Hydra, both of them were traumatized by their experiences.

Clint’s suggestion on how to work through things is target practice. A lot of target practice. Sometimes the targets wear little horns. Most of the time, though, they’re just his regular ones - nothing special, just a bunch of purple circles. However, Clint doesn’t like to talk about his feelings much, and oftentimes the most Bucky can get out of him when he tries to get him to open up about their experiences is a general feeling that he’s angry. Very, very angry. And then Clint changes the subject.

"It’s understandable that he’d be angry - I get that.  _I’m_  angry. I’m angry at Hydra and I’m angry at Zola and I’m angry at Pierce. But…I don’t feel like all this shooting at targets is really helping me? And…” Bucky lowers his voice conspiratorially, “I don’t feel like it’s helping HIM, either?”  
  
Natasha sighs, and rolls her eyes. “Bozhe moi.  _Men_. I swear.” She takes Bucky by the hand and down to the training area, where Clint is pulling arrows out of an archery target.

"Clinton Francis Barton." At the sound of his full name being called by his ex-girlfriend, Clint freezes, then turns slowly. "C’mere. We’re all going to sit down and have a nice chat." Now Clint looks like a deer in headlights.

Nat waves him over, and after that moment’s hesitation, Clint drops the arrows and heads in their direction, looking equal parts confused and terrified. 

"Sit., c’mon. It’s fine." Bucky smiles at him, and now Clint looks even more perplexed, but slowly, sits down, the three of them forming a sort of little circle. Natasha reaches out to take his hand, and also holds Bucky’s in her other.

"I know what you’re doing, Clint. And you’re allowed to feel angry about what happened to you.  _Both_  of you,” she intones, making sure she looks at both of them pointedly. “It’s okay to feel angry. But the one person you’re not allowed to feel angry at is yourself. What happened to both of you was horrible and cruel and it was absolutely, positively,  _in no way your fault_.”

"I know what it’s like. I know what it’s like to have someone go into your head and just - _rearrange_  things. To play. Take what they wanted, edit things out, leave the rest. What I like to do is to remind myself of who I am now. That I wasn’t the person I was when I did those things. That it wasn’t me. I like to remind myself I have agency. To make choices that are mine, and mine alone. Pick out my own clothes. Decide whether to have the salmon or the lamb for dinner. The red lipstick, or the pink. Make decisions that are  _my_  decisions.”

Her thumb rubs gentle circles in each of their palms. “Taking it out on yourself - that’s not going to do you any good. It’s a road you don’t want to go down. Trust me. Be angry. Be angry at the people who did this to you. Don’t be angry at what you did when you weren’t yourself.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve/Tony, prompt was "Look at me - just breathe, okay?"
> 
> I came to hate this prompt because it was inexplicably popular.

"I know what this is. I know what this is, and Cap -  _Cap_. Steve, you’re going to be fine. You’re going to be just fine.”

Steve’s pacing, wheezing thin breaths, rubbing a space just below his collarbone with such force Tony thinks he might crack his sternum. 

"Hey. Captain Retronaut. Look at me - just breathe, okay? I’m gonna back off, in just a sec, but I need you to look at me and - you ever consider taking up yoga or something? Meditation? Drugs?" 

Steve shakes his head rapidly, but doesn’t speak. Tony thinks it looks like he’s about to start screaming. Or, more accurately, he  _would_ , but he can’t get the air in his lungs to do it.

Tony presses his lips together for a second, decides to try a different tactic. He exhales, and then launches into it, stepping directly in front of Steve. “Listen, okay. What’s happening to you - these little freakouts - they happen to me too. Real bad. After New York? I was a mess. I tried to pretend I wasn’t a mess. But I was a mess. So I get it, okay. Let’s get outside, get some fresh air, all right?”

He leads Steve to the balcony, presses him down into a deck chair. “All right, Cap’n. I need you to sit and just - I don’t know, look up at the sky or something, and take a deep breath, deep as you can, all right? And then work on letting out slow, slow as you’re able.” 

They sit there like that for a few minutes, Tony talking him through his breathing, Steve with his head tipped back slightly looking up at the clouds, until he’s able to speak again.

"Tony, I -" he starts.  
  
"Nope, no, nuh-uh, none of that. Didn’t happen. Not gonna talk about it. I just need you to know, Cap - what I came up here to tell you is that he’s gonna be just fine. The adjustments on the arm are compete, the tracker and the self-destruct protocols have been removed without incident, and no one got hurt. Let me repeat: Your boyfriend is  _fine_. Okay?”

Steve nods weakly. “Thank you.”

Tony shakes his head. “Man. I thought Mr. Roboto only got that way over  _you_. You senior citizens really need to be more careful with your heart rates.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky/Sam, prompt was "Where are you?"

It had been a rough month. Bucky had had his ups and downs in his recovery, like anyone else would. It was perfectly understandable, and to be expected. Some days were better than others. Lately, though, there’d been a string of bad days. Tonight apparently being the apex of those days, he’d blown up and broken one of Steve’s plates after being told to let Natasha set the table, and then rushed out of the apartment, slamming the door.

"Let him go," Natasha calmly intones, picking up the pieces of broken stoneware from the ground, her red hair falling over her face and concealing any expression she might have been making. "Give him some time to breathe."

Steve moves to help her, breaking out of his stunned silence. He’d been frozen in place when Bucky had lashed out. Sam knew he had a hard time trying to deal with Bucky’s ups and downs, never quite sure of how to react to them when something pulled one of his triggers and he went off like a loaded weapon.

"He’s never gone out like this before," worries Steve. "I should go -" he starts, moving for the door, forgetting his hands are full of shards of broken plate.

Sam shakes his head. “Nah, buddy. I got this one. Go on and eat without me.” He grabs his jacket and heads out the door before either of them could protest.

When he gets down to the street, Bucky’s nowhere to be seen. Sam looks to his left, then his right, and…nothing. He sighs to himself. “Barnes. Where are you?” He decides to turn left on nothing more than a hunch. He had read somewhere that people tended to make turns based on their dominant hand - right-handed folks went right an overwhelming majority of the time, left-handed folks went left. He didn’t know what hand was dominant with Bucky, but he guessed that his left side was heavier than his right, so…

"…Or maybe I’m just bullshitting myself, and I don’t have the faintest clue where he got on to," Sam murmurs to himself. After a thirty-minute utterly fruitless meander around the neighborhood, Sam gives up. If Bucky didn’t want to be found, he wouldn’t be. He decides to head back to Steve’s place, his stomach now loudly complaining about his missed dinner. Before he does, though, he texts Bucky, even though he’s certain his stubborn ass won’t respond.  _Where are you, Barnes_ , he taps as he walks, and hits send.

He glances up just as he puts his phone back in his pocket and Bucky’s standing directly in front of him just a few feet away, so close he almost walks right into him. “Sam. ‘M right here.” Bucky’s voice is low, his hood pulled up.

"Been lookin’ for you, man. You okay?" Sam asks, concerned.

Bucky shrugs slightly. “They probably don’t want me back.”

"No, Barnes, everyone’s  _worried_  about you. Why don’t you come back inside? I know you’ve gotta be hungry.” As if to punctuate the statement, Sam’s stomach rumbles loudly, and Sam shoots him a wry grin. “I know  _I_  am.”

"You’re  _always_  hungry, birdman. Shoulda called yourself the Pigeon. Or the Seagull,” Bucky grumbles. “Swoopin’ outta the sky, stealin’ people’s sandwiches.”

Sam laughs. “Barnes, are you  _joking_  with me? That’s a good sign. Pride may be wounded, but your sense of humor is still intact.” He reaches out to Bucky, puts his hand on his shoulder, and turns serious. “Come on, man. Everyone was real worried about you. No one’s mad. They’re all just hungry.”  
  
"No. I…" something in his face crumbles, under the facade of bravado, and Bucky bites his lip. "I shouldn’ta lost my temper. I just…he treats me like I’m made of glass, you know? Like I’m gonna break. And sometimes I hate it. Because sometimes he’s  _right_.”

Sam reaches out, puts his hand on his shoulder reassuringly. “Nah, man. He just cares about you. He cares about you a hell of a lot. He hates seeing you upset, or unhappy, or having any kind of trouble. Man singlehandedly ran into a war zone with no training and nothin’ but a shield to find you, but this is a thing he can’t jump out of a plane and save you from and he doesn’t know what to do with himself. But that’s his problem, not yours. Steve’s just gotta learn to fight at your six instead of your twelve, you feel me?”

Chewing his lip, Bucky nods. “Yeah. I…I guess I kinda get how that feels.”

"Now c’mon. Let’s go up, you guys can hug it out. Any more than that, though, I’m taking both your sandwiches and leaving," Sam intones with a mock sternness, turning Bucky around and steering him back up the street to Steve’s building.

"You would anyways, birdman," snorts Bucky.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint/Nat, prompt was "I'm here, I'm not going anywhere".

She’s the first one of the Avengers to show up. Before Tony or Steve or Thor or Jess, she’s at his door, suited up and ready to go. 

He watches her lips move. Something about “the problem.” He stares, and Natasha looks over his shoulder for a second or two, then shakes her head in irritation. Pushing past him, she stalks into the apartment, and he just turns and closes the door. 

Oh. She’s talking to Barney. Her back is turned to him, and blocking his view of his brother, so he just collapses down on the couch. They’d be here any minute to kill him, he figures, so he starts checking the string on his bow, looking over the contents of his quiver.

Clint’s just finished tightening it when he feels someone tap him on the shoulder. He looks up and - Natasha. She looks down at him with a combination of exasperation and fondness. 

[Why didn’t you tell me, Clint?] she signs to him, raising a single eyebrow. He pulls a face and looks away, but she won’t have any of it. [ _Clinton Francis Barton_ ], she signs angrily, and now he knows he’s in official Deep Shit. Nat  _never_  used the full name call unless she was pissed.

He sighs, and it’s hard to look Nat in the eye. [I thought I could do this by myself. I figured no one would show up.]

She grabs him by the chin, gently, turning his face to make sure he’s looking at her. [Listen up, Clint. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.]

It’s when she leans in to kiss him that he realizes - kind of - how stupid he’s been. Her lips are soft, and she tastes kind of like honey, and she smells like her rose perfume, and yeah, okay, he’s been really, really dumb.

[Convinced yet?] she signs to him after they break away. [We’re all gonna do this together. For you. Because we care about you. You stubborn, stupid ass.] Her little half-smile, the one she’s given him a million times and that never gets old, is all he needs to get going.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was given a fic prompt for Steve/Bucky with these three terms:
> 
> Gymnophoria - The sensation that someone is mentally undressing you.
> 
> Tarantism - The urge to overcome melancholy by dancing.
> 
> Lalochezia - The use of abusive language to relieve stress or ease pain.

"I had a date." 

The Stork Club is no more. It went out of business back in the ’60s, while he was still under the ice. When he’d asked the cab driver to take him to 3 E. 53rd Street and got out, Steve stared at the empty lot for a good five minutes. There’s a waterfall in the back, and he had walked towards it slowly, as if hypnotized. 

"Eight sharp, don’t you dare be late."

Once it had been THE club in Manhattan, a place to see and be seen, with the best bands, the best people. Now it’s a park. He doesn’t know why he came, except the stupid, childish hope that when he got out of the car, it’d be 1945, and she’d be there, a wry smile twisting her red-velvet lips, looking at her watch with one raised eyebrow.

Steve sits down heavily in an aluminum chair, buries his head in his hands, and cries quietly.

 

* * *

 

He visits every Friday, eight sharp, for over a year. Once, he even brings Peggy. They kiss in front of the waterfall and Steve brushes away a single tear that falls from her eye with a rueful smile.

"You really ought to find a partner to dance with, Steve," she whispers to him. "Dance, and live."

Ten minutes later she doesn’t know who he is again, and, dismayed, he takes her back to the assisted care facility. Once he gets her tucked in and secure, he leaves. In the car, away from prying eyes, Steve curses a blue streak, tears stinging his eyes. It doesn’t change anything, but it makes him feel better.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He still visits the park, and he’s there one Friday, eight sharp, drowning in his own self-pity when he decides, what the hell, why not. Why not go dancing. Why not take Peggy’s advice and…live.

The nearest club is only a few blocks away, and he slips in and buys a drink at the bar. He nurses his drink and watches the crowd. Dancing today is not like it used to be - used to be that you had to know all the steps, and so did your partner. He was unequivocally terrible at it. Too much thinking, too much coordination and cooperation.

Nowadays, though, it was all kind of this…free-form flailing. He felt a lot more comfortable with that. He tries to picture his former self on the dance floor and has to suppress a laugh. No one would know if he was having a seizure on the dance floor or if he was just an excellent dancer. “I’d have fit right in”, he says in a low voice to himself, and decides to try it out.

The bass is booming, and the music is loud, and he starts moving on the dance floor. He’s fully comfortable by the third song, as no one is pointing and laughing and he hasn’t fallen down. All marks of success. And it’s fun to let go, get lost in the crowd. No one’s recognized him, he thinks, and feels satisfied.

"I bet none of them woulda thought you had it in you, Stevie." The voice is rough but familiar from behind him, and it seems he’s spoken too soon.

He turns, startled. “Bucky?”

The first thing he sees is the grin, cocky and proud, just as he remembers. Then the flash of grey eyes, dancing in the low light of the club. Bucky’s hair is pulled back in a loose ponytail, a few stray strands escaping to fall around his face. He’s wearing a tight, black, long-sleeved shirt and skinny jeans and he looks…he looks  _good_.

"This is the last place I’d have gone looking for you. And here you are. Dancin’, even. Who’da thunk it." He winks. Steve stares. All he can think about is peeling him out of those clothes.

Bucky reaches up, runs his thumb over Steve’s lower lip with mock gravity. “Careful, you’re droolin’ on yourself, Stevie-doll.”

"Bucky," he repeats stupidly. "You’re here. You’re really here." And then he starts laughing, gasping and nearly collapsing with it. "Find a partner, she said. Figures. She  _was_  always right about everything.”


End file.
